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7V  -  2  2- 

Original  Contributions  of  Louisiana 
to  Medical  Sciences 


'^fl/A  BIOGRAPHIC  STUDY 


EDMOND  SOUCHON,  M.  D. 

Professor  Emeritus  of  Anatomy,  Tulane  School  of  Medicine, 


NEW  ORLEANS 


Read  at  the  Meeting  of  the  Louisiana  Historical  Society 
on  December  15th,   1915. 


American  Ftg.  C©.,  535-7  Poydras. 


ORIGINAL  CONTRIBUTIONS  OF  LOUISIANA  TO 
MEDICAL  SCIENCES. 

By  Dr.  Edmoncl  Souchon,  Professor  Emeritus  of  Anatomy, 
Tiilane  School  of  Medicine;  read  at  the  Meeting  of  the 
Louisiana  Historical  Society  on  December  15,  1915. 

A  BIOGRAPHIC  STUDY. 

By  original  contributions  is  meant  something  new  that 
has  never  been  done  before  by  somebody  else. 

It  is  physically  utterly  impossible  for  people  engaged  in 
the  prosaic  money-getting  pursuits  to  realize,  even  faintly, 
the  tremendous  significance  that  the  intellectuals — that  is, 
those  engaged  in  the  sciences,  literature  and  the  arts,  attach 
to  the  word  original.  To  have  done  something  original,  ever 
so  little,  is  to  them  the  supremest  achievement.  They  feel 
as  if  by  creating  something  new  they  are  singled  by  the 
finger  of  God  from  the  common  herd  and  lifted  up  by  the 
great  Creator  himself,  to  be  one  of  the  anointed.  Thousands 
of  wretched  deluded  mortals  have  suffered  eternal  poverty 
in  the  mad  hope  to  attain  this  goal,  ever  vanishing  to  so 
many  of  them  like  the  mirage  in  the  desert.  Worse  than  all, 
many  have  inflicted  pitilessly  the  most  cruel  privations  in 
that  attempt,  upon  those  they  should  love  the  most,  their 
wives  and  children. 

The  supreme  and  lofty  contempt  of  the  often  dirty,  hirsute 
creatures,  oddly  clad,  shown  by  the  ordinary  money  people  is 
something  stupendous. 

For  some  time  past  I  have  been  devoting  much  time  to 
the  study  of  Original  Contributions  of  America  to  Medica] 
Sciences.  I  was  exceedingly  happy  and  proud  to  find  that 
Louisiana,  with  twenty-nine  original  contributors  comes  on 
a  par  with  the  great  old  populous  cultured  city  of  Boston 
which  presents  also  twenty-nine  original  contributors. 

All  the  contributors  belong  to  the  City  with  but  one  ex- 
ception, that  of  Dr.  Francois  Prevost  of  Donaldsonville,  who 
was  the  first  to  perform  Cesarean  Section  in  America  in 


about  1830.  Cesarean  Section  is  an  operation  consisting 
in  cutting  through  the  belly  and  the  womb  to  remove  a 
child  when  the  natural  passages  are  obstructed.  He  oper- 
ated four  times  successfully,  losing  but  one  mother,  and 
operating  twice  on  the  same  woman. 

In  the  New  Orleans  Medical  and  Surgical  Journal  of 
June,  1879,  page  933  is  a  record  of  Cesarean  operations  that 
have  been  performed  in  the  State  of  Louisiana  during  the 
present  century,  by  Dr.  Robert  P.  Harris  of  Philadelphia. 
Dr.  Harris  says: 

As  the  State  of  Louisiana  has  the  honor,  so  far  as  it  is 
possible  to  ascertain,  to  have  been  the  pioneer  in  Cesarean 
Section  in  the  United  States,  so  also  is  she  to  be  credited 
with  the  largest  number  of  operations,  and  the  longest 
record  of  successes,  of  any  of  the  States.  In  fact,  after  a 
laborious  search  covering  some  ten  years,  by  which  the  num- 
ber of  cases  recorded  has  been  more  than  doubled,  I  have 
reason  for  believing  that  in  no  section  has  there  been  a 
larger  proportion  of  the  lives  saved.  Nine  cases  are  all 
that  were  published  in  the  medical  journals  of  our  coun- 
try, as  having  been  operated  upon  in  the  State ;  and  of  these 
but  one  was  fatal  to  the  mother,  although  four  of  the  child- 
ren perished. 

At  present  we  have  no  record  earlier  than  that  of  Dr. 
Francois  Prevost,  who  was  born  at  Pont-de-Ce,  in  the  South 
of  France,  about  the  year  1764;  graduated  in  medicine  at 
Paris;  settled  in  San  Domingo;  was  driven  out  during  the 
insurrection ;  escaped  to  Louisiana,  and  spent  the  balance  of 
his  days  at  Donaldsonville,  where  he  died  in  1842  at  the 
age  of  78.  How  early  in  his  career  in  Louisiana,  he  per- 
formed the  operation  of  Cesarean  Section,  I  know  not,  but 
do  know  that  he  was  at  last  credited  with  the  four  cases  I 
have  given  him.  As  he  was  a  bold  operator,  and  was  67 
years  old  when  he  operated  on  the  fourth  case,  it  is  probable 
that  he  may  have  had  others  prior  to  the  first  on  our  record, 
for  he  was  engaged  in  an  active  practice  for  more  than  thirty 
years,  in  a  district  in  which  rickets  was  not  uncommon  as 

2 


a  case  of  dystocia.  Dr.  Prevost  pointed  out  to  Dr.  Cottam, 
a  boy  6  or  7  years  old  as  one  of  the  results  of  his  Cesarean 
deliveries. 

Dr.  Thomas  Cottam,  now  of  New  York,  became  the  suc- 
cessor in  practice  of  Dr.  Prevost,  in  1832,  and  fell  heir  to 
his  books  and  instruments  at  his  death  ten  years  later.  In 
letters  received  from  him  in  March  and  April,  1878,  says  Dr. 
Harris,  and  at  a  subsequent  personal  interview,  I  obtained 
the  accounts  of  Prevost's  cases.  Dr.  Cottam  stated  that 
there  could  be  no  question  as  to  the  performance  of  the  two 
operations  on  the  same  woman,  with  safety  to  herself  and 
children.  Dr.  Prevost  being  an  old  man  when  Dr.  C.  first 
met  him,  and  of  a  peculiarly  reticent  nature,  will  account  for 
the  latter  not  having  been  fully  informed  upon  the  Cesarean 
cases  of  the  former.  In  one  case  (1831)  Dr.  Francois  Pre- 
vost operated  on  a  woman,  a  black,  a  slave  of  Madame  Cadet 
Marous,  aged  about  28  or  29,  named  Caroline  Bellau  or 
Bellak,  in  second  labor;  the  first  child,  a  male,  having  been 
delivered,  as  nearly  as  can  be  ascertained,  by  craniotomy  and 
evisceration.  Dr.  Prevost  made  his  incision  in  the  left  side 
of  the  abdomen,  and  removed  a  female  child,  that  lived,  grew 
up,  married,  and  was  residing  a  few  years  ago  in  New 
Orleans.  The  child  was  a  mulatto,  and  Dr.  Prevost  gave  it 
the  name  of  Cesarine,  and  stipulated  with  Madame  Marous 
that  if  it  lived  it  should  have  its  freedom,  which  was  ac- 
ceded to  and  subsequently  given. 

Caroline  made  a  good  recovery,  as  the  operation  was  elec- 
tive, and  performed  in  good  season,  and  lived  until  Cesa- 
rine was  nearly  grown  up.  Dr.  Cottam  first  saw  them  both 
in  1832,  and  examined  the  cicatrix  of  the  former.  The 
mother  is  described  by  some  of  her  contemporaries  as  "a 
rather  stout,  black  woman,  who  carried  herself  erect." 

A  curious  plantation  rumor  was  started  about  this  woman, 
at  the  time  of  the  operation  or  soon  afterwards,  to  the 
effect  that  she  had  been  operated  upon  in  the  same  wsiy 
some  six  or  seven  times;  and  this  was  found  to  be  still 
credited  a  year  ago  among  some  of  the  old  quondam  slaves 

3 


of  the  time,  then  living  in  the  vicinity.  It  required  a  long 
search,  writes  Dr.  Harris,  and  numerous  letters  and  inter- 
views, before  the  facts  could  be  separated  from  the  fic- 
tion in  this  case,  for  which  I  am  much  indebted  to  Dr.  John 
E.  Duffee,  of  Donaldsonville,  Dr.  Cottam,  and  others." 

It  was  quite  a  daring  feat  for  a  country  doctor  to  per- 
form such  an  operation  and  quite  in  keeping  with  Dr. 
McDowell,  of  Kentucky,  who  boldly  first  performed  an 
ovariotomy.  It  is  truly  most  remarkable  that  two  of  the 
most  formidable  operations  in  surgery  were  performed  by 
two  country  doctors  without  hospital  training  of  much  con- 
sequence. Those  two  great  men  were  the  founders  of  ab- 
dominal surgery  which  has  reached  such  a  grand  position 
in  modern  surgery.  It  is  eminently  and  most  undoubtedly 
an  American  product. 

Dr.  Dubourg,  who  practised  in  New  Orleans  in  the 
thirties,  is  credited  by  Dr.  Ernest  S.  Lewis,  of  this  city,  to 
be  the  first  to  have  performed  vaginal  hysterectomy,  but 
this  is  also  claimed  for  others,  specially  Dr.  T.  Gaillard 
Thomas,  of  New  York.  Vaginal  hysterectomy  is  the  re- 
moval of  the  womb  through  the  natural  passages.  Dr.  Du- 
bourg was  an  old  surgeon  of  the  Imperial  Guard  of  Napo- 
leon. I  could  obtain  no  further  data  regarding  this  bold 
surgeon  who  performed  a  capital  operation  surely  without 
knowing  that  anyone  had  preceded  him  in  America. 

Dr.  Charles  Aloysius  Luzenberg  (1805-1848)  was  the  first 
to  remove  a  portion  of  gangrenous  intestines  in  a  case  of 
hernia  and  to  suture  the  end  of  the  bowel  successfully.  He 
was  born  in  Verona,  Italy. 

Although  a  foreigner  (Italian)  Charles  Luzenberg,  a 
great  surgeon  of  New  Orleans  may  be  claimed  by  America, 
for  his  father,  an  Austrian  military  commissariat,  left  Ger- 
many when  his  son  was  fourteen  and  settled  in  Philadel- 
phia, sparing  no  expense  to  complete  the  fine  education  the 
boy  had  begun  in  Landau  and  Weissemberg.  Attending 
the  lectures  and  operations  of  Dr.  Physick  brought  out  still 
more  young  Luzenberg's  surgical  genius. 

4 


A  paper  which  appeared  in  the  tenth  volume  of  the 
"American  Journal  of  Medical  Sciences"  and  the  "Revue 
Medicale"  for  1832  proves  that  if  Luzenberg  did  not  first 
bring  into  notice  what  was  then  a  new  idea,  that  is,  of  ex- 
cluding light  in  various  variolous  disorders  to  avoid  pox 
marks,  he  at  all  events  revived  it. 

Two  whole  years,  1832-4,  were  spent  studying  in  Euro- 
pean clinics,  particularly  under  Dupuytren,  and  on  his  re- 
turn to  New  Orleans,  full  of  zeal  and  schemes  for  improving 
surgical  and  medical  procedure,  he  built  the  Franklin  In- 
firmary, later  the  Luzenberg  Hospital  on  Elysian  Fields 
Street  and  there  did  operations  which  brought  patients  from 
afar  to  get  the  benefit  of  his  skill.  Among  such  operations 
was  the  extirpation  of  a  much  enlarged  cancerous  parotid 
gland  from  an  elderly  man.  This  case,  reported  in  the  "Ga- 
zette Medicale  de  Paris,"  1835,  brought  a  commendation 
with  a  resolution  of  thanks  to  the  author  and  enrollment 
as  corresponding  member  of  the  Academie  de  Medicine. 
Soon  after,  he  excised  six  inches  of  mortified  ileum  in  a 
case  of  strangulated  hernia.  The  patient  was  put  on  opium 
treatment  and  in  thirty-five  days  the  stitches  came  away 
and  he  entirely  recovered.  One  other  operation  he  took 
special  interest  in  doing  was  couching  for  cataract  and  in 
this  he  had  brilliant  results. 

When  Luzenberg  had  his  hospital  on  a  permanent  basis 
his  next  idea  was  a  Medical  School.  Being  influential,  and 
also  friends  with  the  State  Governor,  this  project,  with  the 
help  of  his  medical  confreres,  was  soon  embodied  in  the 
Medical  College  of  Louisiana  with  himself  as  dean,  ad 
interim,  and  professor  of  Surgery  and  Anatomy.  He  was 
the  first  professor  of  Surgery  of  the  University  of  Louisiana. 
He  founded  the  Society  of  Natural  History  and  the  Sciences 
and  to  it  bequeathed  a  rich  collection  of  specimens.  When 
the  Louisiana  Medico-Chirurgical  Society  was  legally  incor- 
porated he  was,  because  of  his  help  in  forming  it,  chosen 
first  president.  It  held  brilliant  meetings  at  which  the 
French  and  English  physicians  of  the  State  met  to  exchange 

5 


views,  and  it  was  undoubtedly  the  spirit  of  these  meetings 
that  caused  a  college  building  to  be  erected  for  the  Medical 
School,  and  that  started  the  "New  Orleans  Medical  and 
Surgical  Journal." 

Dr.  Luzenberg  was  no  ordinary  man.  He  was  most  intel- 
lectual, active,  energetic,  ambitious,  aggressive  and  pro- 
gressive. He  made  many  bitter  enemies.  He  quarreled 
with  his  faculty,  withdrew  from  it  in  anger  and  never  would 
speak  after  that  to  any  of  the  other  members.  He  was 
expelled  from  the  Medical  Society  of  the  day  and  he  had 
a  suit  against  him  for  malpractice,  which  he  won.  We  could 
not  ascertain  the  cause  of  all  those  troubles.  For  all  that 
he  had  a  host  of  staunch  friends  and  admirers. 

He  belonged  to  the  same  faculty  with  Dr.  Warren  Stone 
and  to  the  same  hospital  staff.  There  was  rivalry  between 
the  two  and  Luzenberg's  gentlemanly,  refined  and  sensitive 
nature  suffered  much  from  the  contact  with  the  rugged 
genius  that  was  Stone. 

A  too  active  life  caused  premonitions  of  failing  health 
to  go  unheeded,  but  in  the  spring  of  1848  actual  pain  in  the 
precordial  region,  with  paroxysms  of  palpitation  and 
dyspnea  totally  incapacitated  him  from  work.  A  thorough 
change  to  Virginia  was  planned,  but  at  Cincinnati  he  could 
go  no  further  and  died  there  on  the  fifteenth  of  July,  1848. 
He  was  45  years  old. 

A  very  fine  portrait  of  Dr.  Luzenberg  is  now  in  the 
possesion  of  his  grandson,  Mr.  Chandler  C.  Luzenberg,  at 
1230  State  Street  in  this  city. 

Dr.  John  Leonard  Riddell  (1807-1865),  invented  the  bi- 
nocular microscope.  He  was  born  in  Leyden,  Massachu- 
setts, in  1807,  of  fine  Scotch-Irish  ancestry,  which  could  be 
traced  to  the  eighth  century. 

He  held  his  degrees  of  A.  B.  from  the  Rensselear  School 
of  Troy,  New  York,  and  began  his  career  as  a  lecturer  on 
scientific  subjects.  In  1835  he  was  made  adjunct  profes- 
sor of  chemistry  and  botany  in  the  Cincinnati  Medical 
College,  from  which  he  received  his  M.  D.    He  published  a 

6 


catalogue  of  plants  in  1835  entitled  "A  Synopsis  of  the 
Flora  of  the  Western  States,"  the  pioneer  botany  of  that 
section  of  the  country,  and  in  1836  he  became  professor  of 
chemistry  in  the  Medical  College  of  Louisiana,  a  distinc- 
tion which  he  enjoyed  until  his  death  in  1865. 

His  catalogue  of  Louisiana  plants  assures  to  him  the  dis- 
covery of  several  new,  or  unobserved,  species,  one  genus 
being  called  for  him,  Riddellia  (Riddellia  tegetina,  Nut- 
tall.) 

In  1838  the  President  of  the  United  States  appointed  Dr. 
Riddell  melter  and  refiner  for  New  Orleans,  as  a  recognition 
of  the  creditable  work  just  performed  in  a  scientific  explo- 
ration conducted  in  Texas;  his  incumbency  in  this  ofRce 
lasted  until  1849.  In  1844  he  was  one  of  a  commission 
recommended  by  the  governor  and  legislature  to  devise  a 
means  for  protecting  New  Orleans  from  overflow.  About 
this  period  he  became  devoted  to  microscopy  and  invented 
the  binocular  microscope,  as  noted  on  page  273,  vol.  xvi, 
edition  nine,  of  the  "Encyclopedia  Britannica."  According 
to  Herringshaw's  Encyclopedia  of  American  Biography,  he 
was  the  discoverer  of  the  microscopical  characteristics  of 
the  blood  and  black  vomit  in  yellow  fever. 

Dr.  Riddell  was  a  frequent  contributor  to  the  New  Or- 
leans Medical  and  Surgical  Journal.  He  was  58  years  old 
when  he  died. 

There  is  an  oil  portrait  of  Dr.  Riddell  in  the  Louisiana 
State  Museum. 

Dr.  Warren  Stone,  Sr.,  was  the  first  to  resect  a  portion  of 
rib  to  secure  drainage  in  cases  of  abscess  of  the  liver  and  of 
empyema.  Empyema  is  an  accumulation  of  pus  in  the  chest 
around  the  lung.  He  was  also  the  first  to  cure  an  aneurism 
by  compressing  the  artery.  Also  to  use  silver  wire  to  ligate 
arteries.  He  was  one  of  New  Orleans'  most  noted  surgeons. 
He  was  born  in  St.  Albans,  Vermont,  on  February  3,  1808, 
the  son  of  a  farmer,  Peter  Stone.  As  a  lad  young  Warren 
inclined  to  study  medicine  and  left  home  to  do  so  under  Dr. 
Amos  Twitchell,  in  Keene,  graduating  M.  D.  from  the  Medi- 

7 


cal  School  at  Pittsfield,  Massachusetts.  But  patients  prov- 
ing scanty  he  went  off  in  the  Amelia  to  New  Orleans. 
Cholera  broke  out  and  the  passengers  were  landed  on  Folly 
Island  near  Charleston,  and  housed  there.  Stone  helped 
with  cases  but  had  cholera  also.  When  landed  at  New 
Orleans  in  December  he  was  sick,  poor  and  insufficiently 
clothed.  He  had  a  very  wearying  time,  but  faithfully  ful- 
filled the  duties  of  any  position  that  came  along,  even  of  a 
minor  one.  Dr.  Thomas  Hunt,  who  had  nursed  him  at  Folly 
Island  and  previously  seen  his  good  work,  got  him  at  last 
the  post  of  assistant  surgeon  at  the  Charity  Hospital.  In 
1836  he  became  resident  surgeon,  then  lecturer  on  anatomy 
and  finally  professor  of  surgery  in  the  University  of  Louisi- 
ana, which  post  he  held  until  his  resignation  in  1872. 

Early  in  his  career  he  lost  one  of  his  eyes  from  infec- 
tion from  a  child. 

Dr.  Stone  was  noted  much  for  his  diagnostic  skill  in  sur- 
gery. His  judgment  in  cases  properly  surgical  was  unequal- 
led. He  did  much  to  inaugurate  the  propriety  of  opening 
diseased  joints  and  improving  surgical  technic.  He  had  a 
most  wonderful  memory  and  never  used  any  notes  or  forgot 
any  fact  he  read  and  remembered  patients  who  had  been  to 
him  years  before.  He  died  in  New  Orleans  on  December  6, 
1872.  He  died  of  Bright's  Disease  and  of  Diabetic  Gan- 
grene of  the  leg.  It  much  distressed  him  to  die,  he  said,  in 
such  a  nasty  way.  His  old  mother  was  still  living  when 
he  died.     He  died  at  64. 

Dr.  Stone  was  a  man  of  large  and  powerful  build,  a 
thorough  rough  diamond,  with  much  disposition  to  gentle- 
ness although  a  very  determined  man.  He  was  a  true  sur- 
gical genius,  with  a  poor  general  education.  He  read  very 
little,  but  what  he  saw  at  the  great  Charity  Hospital,  where 
he  spent  all  of  his  active  life,  he  knew  admirably  well,  but 
when  out  of  the  ordinary  cases  presented  themselves  he  was 
lost  for  the  lack  of  thorough  early  training  and  for  lack  of 
reading.  His  heart  was  as  big  as  his  brain  and  he  was 
charitable  and  generous  to  a  fault.    Of  this  I  can  personally 

8 


bear  witness  because  I  was  the  recipient  of  his  bounty.  He 
was,  of  course,  a  staunch  Confederate  and  was  imprisoned 
in  Fort  Jackson  by  General  Butler  for  resisting  his  com- 
mands. 

There  are  oil  portraits  of  Dr.  Stone  in  the  Charity  Hos- 
pital and  in  the  Josephine  Hutchinson  Medical  College  on 
Canal  Street. 

Dr.  Charles  Jean  Faget  (1818-1884)  discovered  the  lack 
of  correlation  between  the  pulse  and  the  temperature  in 
yellow  fever.  The  discovery  of  a  definite,  practicable 
pathognomonic  sign  of  yellow  fever  by  Dr.  Faget  in  1858 
was  an  invaluable  find.  It  allowed  an  earlier  diagnosis  and 
stopped  at  once  the  long  disputes  regarding  the  confusion 
with  malaria  and  the  pernicious  horror  of  many  types  of 
that  disease. 

Jean  Charles  Faget  was  born  in  New  Orleans  in  1818, 
of  French  parentage.  After  a  most  solid  and  careful  educa- 
tion under  the  Jesuit  Fathers,  he  went  to  Paris  for  his 
medical  education.  After  undergoing  a  rigid  examination 
he  became  an  interne  in  the  French  hospitals  of  Paris  and 
on  finishing  his  studies  graduated  with  great  honor.  His 
thesis,  which  received  cum  magnum  laucle,  was  on  "Quelques 
faits  anatomiques  en  faveur  de  la  cystotomie  sus-pubienne 
chez  les  tres  jeunes  enfants." 

On  his  arrival  in  New  Orleans  where  he  settled  after 
graduation  in  1845,  he  quickly  entered  into  active  practice. 
He  did  not  find  the  field  of  the  profession  barren  of  men 
with  ability.  There  was  then  in  the  city  a  galaxy  of  distin- 
guished men,  most  of  them  graduates  of  "La  Faculte  de 
Paris,"  men  who  after  their  splendid  preparation  in  the 
hospitals  and  laboratories  of  Paris  soon  became  brilliant 
practicioners  in  America,  among  them  Drs.  Charles  Delery, 
Lambert,  Labatut,  Henri  Ranee,  Beugnot,  and  many  others. 
Dr.  Faget,  though  modest  and  retiring,  was  soon  at  the 
fore.  Of  course,  it  was  impossible  for  men  of  such  ability 
and  forcefulness  to  get  along  in  perfect  harmony  and  peace. 
Our  earliest  masters  were  very  prone  to  argumentation  and 
to  most  active  polemiques. 

9 


When  Dr.  Faget  joined  La  Societe  Medicale  de  la  Nou- 
velle-Orleans,  he  soon  became  a  propagandist  of  the  infec- 
tious school  of  the  spread  of  disease,  while  his  distinguished 
confreres,  Charles  Delery,  Beugnot,  and  Ranee  were  of  the 
contagionist  school.  It  was  during  the  interminable  pole- 
miques  between  these  scientists  that  most  of  the  work  and 
labor  of  these  gentlemen  was  told,  couched  in  language  most 
polite,  but  with  sarcasm  most  biting,  while  they  broke  their 
lances  against  one  another,  and  enunciated  their  theories 
and  related  the  facts  they  had  as  proofs. 

Dr.  Faget  read  many  letters  before  the  society,  which 
were  published  in  "La  Gazette  Medicale,"  all  to  prove  that 
the  old  school  which  believed  that  the  natives  never  had 
yellow  fever  were  wrong;  that  the  yellow  fever,  which  was 
diagnosed  by  them  with  the  then  specific  symptoms  of  black 
vomit  was  not  yellow  fever,  but  most  of  them  a  pernicious 
malarial  fever,  which,  properly  treated,  answered  to  mas- 
sive doses  of  quinine.  Finally,  on  July  15,  1859,  Faget 
proved  the  difference  between  these  cases  and  real  yellow 
fever,  a  fever  of  one  paroxysm  with  sometimes  a  remission, 
a  flush  face,  red  gums,  frequently  hemorrhagic  gums,  a 
pointed,  coated  tongue,  red  and  thin  at  the  edges,  ushered  by 
a  chill  at  night.  First  day,  high  fever,  pulse  in  proportion ; 
second  day,  high  fever  and  falling  pulse,  some  albumen  in 
urine ;  third,  fourth  and  fifth  day,  even  fifty,  while  the  tem- 
perature is  maintained.  This  important  observation,  made 
and  given  out  by  Dr.  Faget  in  1859,  was  bitterly  assailed 
at  the  time,  but  its  truth  was  quickly  recognized  by  Dr. 
Thomas  Layton  and  later  by  Dr.  Just  Touatre.  In  1870 
the  latter,  who  had  used  for  years  in  his  service  as  a  French 
marine  surgeon,  a  larger  rectal  centigrade  thermometer, 
was  able  to  absolutely  confirm  the  observation  of  Dr.  Faget, 
that  often  in  the  first  twenty-four  or  thirty-six  hours,  with 
a  rising  temperature,  as  shown  by  the  thermometer,  the 
pulse  instead  of  becoming  more  rapid  is  proven  by  the 
watch  to  be  gradually  falling,  losing  entirely  its  usual  cor- 
relation. This  is  undoubtedly  due  to  some  intense  toxin 
absorption  affecting  the  sympathetic  nervous  system.    Often 

10 


a  rising  temperature  of  105  or  104  Fahrenheit  shows  a 
pulse  of  sixty,  or  as  low  as  fifty  per  minute.  For  this  most 
important  clinical  observation  and  also  his  "differential 
symptomatic  signs  in  hematemesic  paludal  fever,"  after  the 
epidemic  of  yellow  fever  in  1858,  he  was  decorated  by  the 
French  government  as  a  Chevalier  de  la  Legion  D'Honneur. 
And  for  his  "Type  and  Specific  of  Malaria  with  Watch  and 
Thermometer"  he  received  twenty-four  votes  out  of  thirty- 
three  for  his  candidature  as  a  member  of  the  Academie 
Medicalc  de  Paris.  Dr.  Faget  was  also  a  member  of  the 
Louisiana  State  Board  of  Health.  His  personality  was  an 
ideal  one,  for  besides  his  great  medical  ability  he  had 
splendid  qualities  of  heart  and  mind,  modest  and  pure;  he 
was  a  consistent  Christian  and  always  a  thorough  and  honor- 
able gentleman.  This  well-spent  life  when  it  ended,  Septem- 
ber 4,  1884,  had  certainly  been  a  most  useful  one  and  the 
Faget  law  of  pulse  and  temperature  is  as  well  known  in 
the  entire  yellow-fever  zone  as  the  mosquito  dogma  is  to- 
day.   He  was  66  when  he  died. 

Dr.  Faget  was  of  a  very  striking  appearance.  He  was 
tall,  sparely  built  with  a  clean  cut  face,  a  slightly  hooked 
nose,  a  high  receding  forehead  and  long  wavy  black  grizzly 
hair,  brushed  backward.  He  often  wore  a  low  crown  silk 
hat  with  a  rather  broad,  slightly  rolled-up  brim.  In  winter 
he  was  wrapped  in  a  long  black  coat,  fastened  with  a  silver 
chain  and  hook  such  as  priests  wore  then.  In  the  summer 
he  wore  a  black  straw  hat  like  the  priests.  In  fact  he  looked 
very  much  like  a  priest,  with  his  soft,  gentle  voice.  He  was 
intensely  religious.  But  the  similitude  stopped  there.  He 
married  a  sweet,  angelic-faced  woman  and  raised  a  large 
family. 

He  was  one  of  those  intellectuals  to  whom  the  almighty 
dollar  was  of  little  concern.  He  at  one  time  had  a  large 
practice,  but  he  was  a  poor  charger,  a  bad  collector,  no  in- 
vestor at  all.    He  died  poor. 

Of  the  fifteen  or  twenty  young  Creoles  who  went  to  Paris 
for  their  medical  education.  Dr.  Faget  is  the  only  one  who 

11 


has  done  something  and  has  attained  distinction  and  fame. 

He  was  the  first  in  Louisiana  to  administer  chloroform  in 
childbed. 

There  is  an  oil  portrait  of  Dr.  Faget  in  the  Louisiana 
State  Museum. 

Dr.  H.  D.  Schmidt  (1823-1888)  discovered  the  origin  of 
the  bile  ducts  in  the  intercellular  spaces  of  the  liver. 

He  was  born  at  Marburg,  Prussia,  receiving  the  usual 
education  of  a  German  boy,  then  was  apprenticed  to  an 
instrument  maker  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  which  training  in 
after  life  enabled  him  to  conceive  and  construct  various 
pieces  of  apparatus  for  the  benefit  of  his  scientific  investi- 
gations (his  microtome  and  injector,  employed  in  his  re- 
searches into  the  histology  of  the  liver).  During  his  ap- 
prenticeship he  visited  the  large  cities  of  Europe  and  came 
to  Philadelphia  in  1848,  where  he  began  the  study  of 
anatomy  and  constructed  papier  mache  models  of  such  cor- 
rectness and  beauty  that  several  are  still  preserved  in  the 
medical  department  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania.  At- 
tracting the  attention  of  Leidy  and  Jackson,  he  became 
prosecutor  to  Dr.  Jackson  and  assisted  Prof.  Leidy  in  many 
of  his  physiological  investigations.  After  studying  five 
years,  he  graduated  in  medicine  in  1858  (University  of 
Pennsylvania)  and  devoted  himself  to  histology.  By  his 
own  contrivance  of  an  injecting  apparatus,  he  was  able  to 
solve  the  question  of  the  termination  of  the  bile  ducts  of 
the  liver  and  to  demonstrate  their  origin  in  the  intercel- 
lular space.  In  1860  Dr.  Schmidt  went  South,  first  to  the 
Medical  College  of  Alabama,  in  Mobile,  and  thence  to  New 
Orleans,  succeeding  Penniston  as  demonstrator  of  anatomy 
in  the  New  Orleans  School  of  Medcine.  During  the  Civil 
War  he  served  the  South  as  a  military  surgeon.  At  the 
close  of  the  struggle  he  returned  to  New  Orleans  and  was 
installed  as  pathologist  to  the  Charity  Hospital,  a  position 
which  he  occupied  for  twenty  years.  He  was  known  as  a 
man  of  strong  convictions,  honest  and  earnest;  never  cyni- 
cal nor  prejudiced  in  regard  to  the  opinions  of  others.  He 
contributed  to  literature: 

12 


"On  the  Minute  Structure  of  the  Hepatic  Lobules/' 
("American  Journal  of  Medical  Sciences,"  January,  1859)  „ 
"Microscopical  Anatomy  of  the  Human  Liver."  (New 
Orleans  Medical  Journal  of  Medicine,"  October,  1869,  and 
January  and  April,  1870) .  He  inaugurated  the  teaching  of 
microscopy  at  the  Charity  Hospital  and  trained  a  number 
of  pupils,  among  others,  Dr.  Matas  and  Dr.  Bruns.  He  was 
65  years  old  when  he  died. 

There  is  an  oil  portrait  of  Dr.  Schmidt  at  the  Charitjr 
Hospital. 

Dr.  Tobias  Gibson  Richardson  (1827-1892)  was  the  first 
to  amputate  both  legs  at  the  hip  joint  at  one  time  on  the 
same  subject  and  the  patient  recovered.  This  was  years 
prior  to  the  use  of  anesthetcis  and  asepsis.  He  was  the  first, 
to  publish  an  anatomy  with  English  names.  Also  the  first 
to  treat  cystitis  with  strong  solutions  of  nitrate  of  silver^ 

He  was  born  in  Louisville,  Ky.  He  was  a  most  prominent 
pupil  of  Dr.  Samuel  D.  Gross  in  Philadelphia.  There  he 
was  a  member  of  the  College  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons. 
He  was  president  of  the  American  Surgical  Association  in. 
1878. 

Dr.  Richardson  subsequently  became  a  professor  in  one 
of  the  schools  in  Philadelphia.  He  did  his  best  work,  how- 
ever, in  New  Orleans,  where  he  occupied  the  chair  of  sur- 
gery in  the  Tulane  University,  and  was  visiting  surgeon  ta^ 
the  Charity  Hospital. 

Dr.  Richardson  was  tall  and  strongly  built.  He  pre- 
sented a  commanding  appearance.  He  seemed  cold  and 
distant  at  first,  but  his  manners  and  speech  were  soft,  gen- 
tle and  winning.  He  was  a  man  of  very  strong  feelings.- 
He  was  profoundly  and  sincerely  religious  and  austerly  just 
to  all.  He  was  afflicted  with  the  most  terrible  ordeal  that 
anyone  could  have  stood.  He  lost  his  wife  and  three  chil- 
dren in  a  steamboat  explosion  and  he  was  unable  to  recover 
their  bodies.  This  terrible  event  forever  cast  on  his  life  a 
profound  gloom. 

Several  years  after  the  loss  of  his  wife,  he  married  Ida 

13 


Ann  Slocomb.  After  his  death  in  1892  Mrs.  Richardson 
contributed  $170,000  to  build  a  memorial  addition  to  the 
Tulane  University  in  memory  of  her  husband,  and  at  her 
death  left  $25,000  more.  Dr.  Richardson  was  65  when  he 
died. 

A  portrait  of  Dr.  Richardson  is  in  the  Josephine  Hutchin- 
son School  of  Medicine  in  Canal  street;  also  a  marble  me- 
dallion in  the  library  of  the  same  building;  also  a  photo- 
graph of  this  medallion  in  the  Louisiana  State  Museum. 
At  the  Richardson  Memorial  on  Tulane  Campus  there  is  a 
bronze  medallion.  An  oil  portrait  of  Mrs.  Richardson  is  now 
in  the  president's  office  at  Tulane  University. 

Dr.  Compton  was  the  first  to  resect  the  radius  and  the 
ulna,  i.  e.  the  two  bones  of  the  forearm  in  1853. 

I  could  find  no  bibliographical  data  concerning  Dr.  Comp- 
ton. 

Dr.  Albert  Baldwin  Miles  (1852-1894)  was  the  first  to 
apply  a  loop  ligature  around  the  first  portion  of  the  sub- 
clavian artery  while  operating  on  the  third  portion.  A  loop 
ligature  is  one  that  is  not  tied. 

He  was  born  in  Prattville,  Ala.,  on  May  18,  1852.  His 
father,  a  farmer,  removed  to  Arkansas  in  1857  and  an 
uncle  living  in  El  Dorado  educated  the  boy  and  sent  him  to 
the  University  of  Virginia. 

In  1872  he  entered  the  medical  department  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Louisiana,  in  pursuance  of  a  fixed  intention  to 
study  medicine.  He  graduated  from  the  university  in  1875, 
being  the  valedictorian  of  his  class. 

In  April,  1877,  he  became  assistant  house  surgeon  of  the 
Charity  Hospital,  holding  this  position  until  1881,  when  he 
accepted  the  post  of  house  surgeon  of  the  Hotel  Dieu.  On 
April  4,  1882,  he  was  elected  house  surgeon  of  the  Charity 
Hospital  and  held  this  oflfice  until  his  death  in  1894. 

From  1875  to  1885  he  was  demonstrator  of  anatomy,  and 
it  is  recorded  that  he  never  missed  a  single  appointment 
with  his  classes.  In  1886  he  became  professor  of  materia 
medica  and  therapeutics,  and  filled  this  position  until  the 

14 


end  of  the  session  of  1892-3  when  he  was  elected  professor 
of  surgery,  succeeding  Dr.  Logan. 

As  a  surgeon  Miles  possessed  the  clear  mind  and  steady 
hand  that  overcome  all  emergencies. 

His  executive  ability  was  notable,  and  during  his  regime 
at  the  Charity  Hospital  many  improvements  were  insti- 
tuted. The  ambulance  system  was  largely  his  plan ;  his  sug- 
gestions assisted  in  the  planning  of  the  outdoor  clinical 
buildings,  and  the  amphitheatre,  which  he  never  beheld 
completed. 

He  never  married.  He  was  never  known  to  have  had  a 
sweetheart.  However,  at  one  time  it  was  covertly  whis- 
pered around  that  he  had  proposed  to  a  lovable  girl,  but 
that  she  was  already  engaged. 

Dr.  Miles  was  tall,  but  not  broadly  built.  He  walked  with 
a  little  stoop  and  with  long  steps,  from  driving  the  plow 
in  earlier  days,  we  all  thought.  He  had  a  smooth  face  and 
a  girlish  appearance,  with  -bright  shining  grey  eyes  with 
dilated  pupils.  His  speech  was  deliberate  and  his  manners 
soft  and  gentle.  He  was  very  politic  and  always  took  care 
that  any  who  called  on  him  would  go  away  pleased,  specially 
with  Dr.  Miles.    He  was  quite  magnetic. 

The  operating  amphitheatre  of  the  Charity  Hospital  bears 
his  name  as  also  the  laboratory  of  operative  surgery  in  the 
Josephine  Hutchinson  Medical  college.  He  had  materially 
contributed  financially  to  the  erection  of  both. 

He  was  for  many  years  the  house  surgeon  of  the  Hotel 
Dieu,  the  pet  of  the  Sisters  there  and  of  the  Charity  Hos- 
pital.   He  was  not  a  Catholic. 

In  his  short  life  he  had  accumulated  a  fortune  said  to  be 
$125,000,  from  his  savings  and  from  speculations. 

A  year  or  so  before  his  death  he  had  purchased  a  resi- 
dence on  St.  Charles  avenue  and  had  intended  to  live  in  it 
with  his  sister,  who  was  then  in  Arkansas. 

He  died  of  hemorrhagic  typhoid  fever.  He  was  42  years 
old.  His  untimely  death,  at  the  height  of  such  an  unprece- 
dented career,  cast  a  deep  gloom  all  over  the  city.     Hls 

15 


funeral  started  most  fittingly  from  the  porch  of  the  Charity 
Hospital  and  the  services  were  conducted  by  his  friend  and 
patient,  Dr.  Benjamin  M.  Palmer.  The  big  front  iron  gates 
of  the  hospital  which  had  been  closed  for  so  many  years, 
were,  on  this  solemn  occasion,  thrown  open  to  give  passage 
to  the  mortal  remains  of  the  lamented  chief.  After  his 
death,  the  medical  faculty  had  a  memorial  tablet  placed  in 
the  hall  of  the  Medical  College,  now  the  Josephine  Hutchin- 
son Medical  College,  with  the  following  inscription : 

IN  MEMORY  OF 

PROFESSOR  ALBERT  B.  MILES, 

BORN  IN  ALABAMA,  MAY  18,  1852.  , 

DIED  IN  NEW  ORLEANS,  AUGUST  5,  1894, 

GRADUATED  IN  MEDICINE,  BY  THIS  COLLEGE,  IN 

1875, 
AND  WAS  VALEDICTORIAN  OF  HIS  CLASS. 
DEMONSTRATOR   OF  ANATOMY,   1875-1885, 
PROFESSOR  MATERIA  MEDICA,  ETC.,  1886-1893, 
PROFESSOR  SURGERY,  ETC.,   1893-1894, 
ASSISTANT     AND      HOUSE      SURGEON      OF      THE 
CHARITY  HOSPITAL  DURING  16  OF  THE  17 
YEARS— 1877-1894. 
HE  DIED  HONORED  AND  BELOVED  AND  OF 
UNSURPASSED  REPUTE  IN  HIS  PROFESSION. 
HE  BEQUEATHED  TEN  THOUSAND  DOLLARS 
FOR    THE    BENEFIT    OF    THE    MEDICAL    DEPART- 
MENT OF  THE  TULANE  UNIVERSITY  OF 
LOUISIANA. 

An  oil  portrait  of  Dr.  Miles  is  in  the  Charity  Hospital. 
There  is  also  a  memorial  window  with  his  picture  at  the 
Hotel  Dieu.  There  is  also  a  crayon  portrait  in  the  Jose- 
phine Hutchinson  Medical  College. 

Dr.  Joseph  Jones  (1833-1896)  is  said  to  have  discovered 
the  Plasmodium  of  malarial  fever  before  Laveran.  He  is 
best  known  for  his  writings  on  "Diseases  in  the  Southern 
States."     He  was  born  on  September  6,  1833,  in  Liberty 

16 


County,  Ga.,  the  son  of  the  Rev.  Charles  and  Mary  Jones. 
As  a  lad  he  had  private  tuition  and  five  years  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  South  Carolina,  taking  his  A.  M.  from  Princeton 
College,  N.  J.,  and  his  M.  D.  from  the  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania in  1855.  The  University  of  Georgia  gave  him 
his  LL.D.  in  1892.  The  Savannah  Medical  College  chose 
him  as  her  professor  of  chemistry  in  1858,  but  three  years 
after  he  was  one  year  professor  of  natural  philosophy  of 
and  theology  in  the  University  of  Athens,  Ga.,  then  pro- 
fessor of  chemistry  in  the  Medical  College  of  Georgia, 
Augusta.  During  the  war  he  was  six  months  in  the  cavalry 
and  for  the  rest  of  the  time  full  surgeon-major  in  the  Con- 
federate army. 

Keen  in  his  studies  of  disease,  he  made  investigations  in 
most  of  the  Southern  States,  being  more  in  the  center  of 
things  by  his  service  as  professor  of  chemistry  and  clinical 
medicine  in  the  Universitj^  of  Louisiana  and  as  president 
of  the  Board  of  Health  in  this  State  He  had  the  usual 
pleasant  time  given  to  all  sanitary  officers,  especially  at  the 
ports.  After  a  continuous  battle  of  four  years  with  the 
maritime  and  railroad  interests  the  court  voted  quarantine 
to  be  a  legitimate  exercise  of  the  political  rights.  The  whole 
life  of  Dr.  Jones  was  devoted  to  the  thankless  task  of  pro- 
moting civic  and  military  hygiene  in  the  city.  His  writings 
are  too  numerous  to  mention.    He  died  at  63. 

There  is  a  portrait  of  Jones  in  the  Josephine  Hutchinson 
Medical  College. 

The  original  contributors  now  to  be  mentioned  are  still 
alive. 

Dr.  Andrew  Wood  Smyth  was  the  first  to  cure  a  sub- 
claviun  aneurism  of  the  third  portion.  An  aneurism  is  a 
tumor  on  an  artery  and  filled  with  blood.  If  not  checked  it 
will  ultimately  burst  and  kill  the  patient  by  hemorrahage. 

The  subclavian  artery  is  a  large  artery  just  behind  the 
collar  bone.  He  did  it  by  ligating  the  innominate  artery  and 
the  common  carotid  simultaneously  and  later  on  the  verte- 

17 


bral  artery.  These  arteries  are  large  vessels  near  the  heart. 
He  was  the  first  in  the  world  to  successfully  ligate  the  in- 
nominate artery,  also  the  vertebral  in  cases  of  such  aneu- 
risms to  control  the  secondary  hemorrhage  which  had  killed 
all  previous  cases. 

Dr.  Smyth  came  from  Ireland  to  New  Orleans  before  he 
was  20  years  old.  He  first  worked  in  a  drug  store,  then 
studied  medicine,  and,  I  think,  graduated  from  the  New 
Orleans  School  of  Medicine.  When  the  Federals  took  pos- 
session of  the  city,  he  was  made  house  surgeon  of  the 
Charity  Hospital,  which  position  he  occupied  until  the  ad- 
v^ent  of  the  Nicholls  government  in  1876.  It  was  in  1864 
that  he  performed  the  operation  that  immortalized  him. 
He  was  then  thirty-one  years  old.  Dr.  Smyth  had  also  been 
director  of  the  Mint  in  New  Orleans.  When  about  61  years 
old,  the  call  of  the  home  was  so  strong  that  he  returned  to 
the  old  country  and  is  still  living  there  on  the  old  family 
farm  on  which  he  was  born.    He  is  now  82  years  of  age. 

Dr.  Joseph  Holt  was  the  first  to  successfully  inject  the 
fumes  of  sulphurous  acid  into  the  holds  of  loaded  vessels 
for  purposes  of  disinfection,  ?'.  e.  of  killing  what  germs 
there  were  in  them.  He  succeeded  in  disinfecting  the  ves- 
sels, because  he  killed  thereby  the  mosquitoes  that  were 
conveying  yellow  fever,  but  he  did  not  know  then  how  he 
had  accomplished  disinfection  until  the  mosquito  theory 
came  to  light.  He  was,  therefore,  the  founder  of  maritime 
sanitation. 

Dr.  Holt  was  at  that  time,  in  1884,  president  of  the  Louis- 
iana State  Board  of  Health.  He  was  then  45  years  of  age. 
He  had  a  particularly  strenuous  time  to  uphold  his  system. 
He  retired  from  the  board  in  1889.  Upon  retiring  from  the 
Board  of  Health  he  continued  to  practice  medicine.  He  is 
still  living  in  New  Orleans.  He  is  now  77  years  of  age  and 
is  still  practicing. 

Dr.  Edmond  Souchon  was  the  first  to  preserve  anato- 
mic dissections  with  permanent  color  of  muscles,  vessels 
and  organs.      Ever   since,    centuries    ago,    the    celebrated 

18 


Andrea  Vesalius  inaugurated  the  dissection  of  human 
bodies,  anatomists  have  ardently  looked  for  a  means  of 
preserving  them  with  some  color,  but  they  had  all  failed. 
Dr.  Souchon,  upon  perfecting  his  discovery  after  several 
years  of  labor  at  Tulane  University,  has  built  up  for  Tulane 
a  Museum  of  Anatomic  preparations,  all  of  which  are  made 
after  his  method.  It  is  the  only  museum  in  the  world  in 
which  color  is  seen.  The  Board  of  Administrators  have 
named  the  museum  the  Souchon  Museum  of  Anatomy. 
There  are  only  six  other  museums  in  the  world  which  have 
been  named  after  great  anatomists  and  surgeons. 

Dr.  Souchon  has  contributed  many  other  points  to 
anatomy  and  surgery,  which  it  would  be  here  too  long  to 
enumerate. 

Dr.  Souchon  was  educated  in  Paris.  Returning  to  New 
Orleans  he  become  the  assistant  of  Professor  Richardson  at 
the  Medical  College  of  Louisiana,  now  Tulane  University. 
In  1884  he  was  elected  to  the  chair  of  anatomy  and  clinical 
surgery. 

Dr.  Souchon  is  from  Opelousas.  He  is  now  75  years  of 
age,  and  is  devoting  his  remaining  years  of  usefulness  to 
the  perfection  of  his  museum. 

A  portrait  of  Dr.  Souchon  is  in  the  Josephine  Hutchinson 
Medical  College  on  Canal  street. 

Dr.  Arthur  Washington  De  Roaldes  was  the  first  to  es- 
tablish an  Eye,  Ear,  Nose  and  Throat  Hospital  for  the 
South,  in  New  Orleans,  i.  e.  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific 
and  from  St.  Louis  to  Rio  de  Janeiro,  if  not  to  Cape  Horn. 
The  amount  of  good  that  institution  has  done,  is  doing,  and 
will  do,  is  incalculable. 

Dr.  De  Roaldes  hails  from  Opelousas.  He  was  educated 
in  France,  but  graduated  from  Tulane  in  New  Orleans.  He 
is  now  66  years  old.  When  about  48  years  old  he  was  af- 
flicted with  the  terrible  misfortune  of  losing  his  eye-sight. 
In  spite  of  this  awful  calamity,  he  continued  the  work  so 
dear  to  his  heart,  to  complete  his  hospital.  He  did  so  until 
complications  compelled  him  to  keep  to  his  room.    Here  he 

19 


is  now  under  the  unceasing  care  of  his  devoted  wife  await- 
ing the  mercy  of  the  Almighty  to  put  an  end  to  his  suffer- 
ings. He  is  a  grand  Christian  and  bears  all  his  ordeals  with 
;great  fortitude.  There  is  an  oil  portrait  of  Dr.  De  Roaldes 
in  the  Eye  and  Throat  Hospital. 

Dr  Rudolph  Matas  discovered  a  simpler  and  more  efficient 
operation  to  cure  aneurisms.  It  consists  in  opening  the 
tumor  and  suture  the  orifices  of  the  vessels  which  open  into 
it.  He  calls  it  the  intra-saccular  suture  method.  It  is  a 
:great  advance  on  all  former  methods.  It  is  now  generally 
adopted  all  over  America  and  partly  in  Europe. 

Dr.  Matas  evolved  also  a  method  of  testing  the  collateral 
•circulation  of  a  limb  or  of  the  head  before  ligating  the  main 
artery  of  the  part.  This  is  very  important,  as  it  tells  before 
ligating  what  the  chances  of  gangrene  will  be  in  case  it  is 
decided  to  ligate  the  main  artery  of  a  region. 

Dr.  Matas  comes  from  St.  John  Parish.  He  graduated  in 
medicine  at  the  old  Louisiana  Medical  College  when  he  was 
barely  twenty-one.  He  soon  developed  a  large  practice. 
At  the  death,  in  1894,  of  the  lamented  Miles,  he  was  made 
professor  of  surgery  in  the  Tulane  School  of  Medicine.  He 
was  then  34  years  old.  It  was  a  few  years  after  this  that 
he  began  on  his  great  work.  The  doctor  is  now  55  years  old 
and  is  one  of  the  leading  surgeons  of  America.  There  is  a 
portrait  of  Dr.  Matas  in  the  Josephine  Hutchinson  Medical 
College  in  Canal  street. 

Dr.  Charles  Warren  Duval  claims  to  be  the  first  to  obtain 
the  bacillus  of  leprosy  in  pure  culture.  This  is  a  most  im- 
portant accomplishment  as  the  cultivation  of  germs  in  pure 
culture  is  the  first  step  leading  to  the  evolution  of  anti- 
toxins and  vaccines.  Dr.  Duval  claims  also  to  have  discov- 
ered the  germ  of  infantile  diarrhea. 

Dr.  Duval  comes  from  the  University  of  Montreal,  al- 
though American  by  birth.  He  is  now  about  40  years  old 
and  is  professor  of  pathology  and  bacteriology-  in  the  Tulane 
School  of  Medicine.    It  is  here  that  he  made  his  discovery. 

Dr.  Maurice  John  Couret  was  the  first  to  demonstrate 

20 


that  the  fish  are  the  host  of  the  germs  of  leprosy;  that  is 
that  the  fish  can  harbor  the  germs  of  leprosy  without  being 
made  sick,  but  those  who  eat  such  fish  will  develop  lep- 
rosy. For  a  number  of  years  a  great  English  physician,  Sir 
Jonathan  Hutchinson,  had  advanced  the  idea  that  fish  were 
the  propagator  of  leprosy  because  leprosy  was  so  prevalent 
in  countries  that  fed  mostly  on  fish.  But  Dr.  Hutchinson 
had  never  proved  anything.  It  was  left  for  Dr.  Couret  to 
give  the  proof. 

By  examining  the  fish  of  a  region  for  the  germs  of  leprosy 
it  can  be  determined  if  it  is  safe  to  feed  on  them. 

Dr.  Couret  is  a  young  Creole  of  the  French  Quarter  of 
New  Orleans.  He  is  now  35  years  of  age  and  is  assistant 
pathologist  in  the  Charity  Hospital.  If  he  were  living  in 
Paris  he  would  surely  have  been  decorated  with  the  Legion 
of  Honor  for  his  achievement. 

Dr.  William  Herbert  Harris,  by  experiment,  showed  that 
pellagra  could  be  transmitted  from  man  to  monkey.  Dr. 
Harris  is  doing  now  for  pellagra  what  the  great  Villemain 
did  sixty  years  ago  in  inocculating  tuberculosis  from  man 
to  animal  before  the  germ  of  tuberculosis  had  been  discov- 
ered. The  germ  of  pellagra  has  not  yet  been  found,  but  the 
discovery  of  an  antitoxin  may  ultimately  result  from  the 
work  of  Dr.  Harris,  just  as  an  antitoxin  has  been  found  by 
Pasteur  for  rabies,  the  germ  of  which  is  still  unknown. 

Dr.  Harris  is  an  Orleanian.  He  is  32  years  old  and  is  an 
assistant  professor  of  Bacteriology  in  the  Tulane  School  of 
Medicine.  Almost  all  of  his  time  is  devoted  to  original  re- 
search. 

Dr.  Charles  Cassedy  Bass  was  the  first  to  cultivate  the 
Plasmodium  of  malarial  fever,  that  is  the  germ  of  malarial 
fever.  This  was  quite  an  achievement  and  gave  him  world- 
wide fame.  Dr.  Bass  also  did  original  work  in  connection 
with  the  use  of  emetin  in  the  treatment  of  Rigg's  disease 
of  the  teeth,  i.  e.  the  suppuration  affecting  the  root  of  the 
teeth. 

Dr.  Bass  is  professor  of  experimental  medicine  in  the 

21 


Tulane  College  of  Medicine.    He  is  now  40  years  old.    He 
still  pursues  original  research. 

Dr.  Foster  Matthew  Johns  has  been  assisting  Dr.  Bass 
in  his  work.  He  is  now  instructor  in  clinical  and  tropical 
medicine  in  the  Tropical  School  of  Medicine  of  Tulane.  He 
is  35  years  old. 

Dr.  Marion  Sims  Souchon  was  the  first  to  remove  a  small 
urinary  calculus  from  the  vesical  intraparietal  portion  of 
the  ureter  by  the  perineal  route.  This  is  quite  a  simplifica- 
tion on  the  other  procedures. 

Dr.  Marion  Souchon  is  a  New  Orleanian.  He  graduated 
from  the  Tulane  School  of  Medicine  in  1894  and  soon 
worked  out  a  fine  practice.  He  is  now  the  head  surgeon  of 
the  Hotel  Dieu  Sanitarium  and  of  the  French  Hospital.  He 
is  also  instructor  in  clinical  surgery  in  the  Tulane  School 
of  Medicine.    He  is  45  years  old. 

Dr.  Clyde  Lynch  claims  to  be  the  first  who  removed  a 
tumor  whole  from  the  larynx  and  to  have  sutured  a  wound 
in  the  larynx. 

Dr.  Lynch  is  the  head  surgeon  of  the  nose  and  throat  de- 
partment of  the  Eye,  Nose  and  Throat  Hospital.  He  is  35 
years  of  age  and  was  born  in  New  Orleans. 

Dr.  Ansel  Marion  Caine  was  the  first  to  administer  warm 
ether  as  an  anesthetic  without  using  a  flame  to  heat  the 
ether.  This  discovery  lessens  very  much  the  risk  of  pneu- 
monia following  the  administration  of  ether.  Hs  is  in- 
structor in  anesthetics  in  the  Tulane  School  of  Medicine. 
He  is  a  Tulane  man.  He  is  33  years  old.  He  has  specialized 
as  an  anesthetist. 

Dr.  Carroll  Woolsey  Allen  was  the  first  to  write  a  com- 
plete treatise  on  "Local  Anesthesia"  in  the  English  lan- 
guage. It  is  a  very  valuable  aid  to  the  surgeon?.  Dr. 
Allen  is  assistant  professor  of  clinical  surgery  in  the  Tu- 
lane School  of  Medicine.  He  has  assisted  Dr.  Matas  in 
several  works  of  research  and  experiments.  He  is  45  years 
of  age. 

Mr.   Lloyd   Arnold   was  the   first  to   demonstrate  that 

22 


Graafian  follicles  of  the  ovary  may  contain  two  or  more  ova. 
He  is  still  a  medical  student  and  was  one  of  the  first  stud- 
ents in  America  to  do  original  research  work.  He  is  a 
thorough  enthusiast  over  such  research  work  and  is  de- 
voting a  great  deal  of  his  time  to  it.    He  is  30  years  old. 

Dr.  Henry  Dickson  Bruns  has  devised  a  new  operation 
for  shortening  the  straight  muscles  of  the  eye-ball.  It  is 
quite  ingenious.  The  doctor  is  from  New  Orleans.  He  is 
a  graduate  of  Tulane.  He  is  the  head  surgeon  of  the  Eye, 
Ear,  Nose  and  Throat  Hospital.    He  is  56  years  old. 

Dr.  Oscar  Dowling  was  the  first  president  of  the  Louis- 
iana State  Board  of  Health  to  equip,  in  the  South,  health 
trains  which  he  carries  over  all  the  parishes  of  Louisiana 
and  of  the  Southern  States  to  teach  the  people,  by  actual 
demonstrations  and  lantern  slide  exhibitions  how  to  pre- 
serve and  improve  their  health.  That  is  the  true  mission  of 
a  State  Board  of  Health. 

Dr.  Dowling  graduated  from  Tulane  and  was  practicing 
rhinology  and  laryngology  before  his  genius  found  its  true 
path.  He  is  39  years  old. 

Dr.  Stanford  Chaille  Jamison,  in  experimenting  on  dogs, 
made  the  discovery  that  when  the  large  vessels  of  the  spleen 
were  ligated  the  spleen  would  not  undergo  gangrene  if  it 
was  covered  over  by  the  omentum,  i.  e.  the  delicate  mem- 
brane which  lays  in  front  of  the  intestines.  This  opens  a 
new  field  in  the  surgery  of  the  spleen  and  abdomen,  and  the 
young  experimenter  deserves  much  credit  for  his  powers  of 
experimentation  and  observation.  The  doctor  is  now  28 
years  old  and  is  a  Tulanian  and  an  Orleanian.  He  is  in- 
structor in  clinical  and  tropical  medicine  in  the  Tulane 
College  of  Medicine. 

Finally,  the  State  of  Louisiana  was  the  first  in  America 
to  establish  and  maintain  a  leprosarium,  i.  e.,  a  leper's  home. 


23 


Date  Due 

1 

^ 

R235  So8 


Souchon  ■ 

Original  contrilDutions  of  Louis iar_. 


